March 11, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

I am always glad to hear that everything is going well back at home.  And yes I enjoy all of your letters, both emails and handwritten.  It's interesting to hear about the different weeks that people can have while all living in the same house.

This week was crazy.  Tuesday we had to get up early to go to Florianopolis to pick up my new companion Elder C*****.  Then we went back and had lunch, all three of us.  We then returned again to F**** because Elder A****** had a meeting for those who will train. We got back at 7:30 PM and then headed over to a recent converts house.  We got home late.  

Wednesday, we didn't have much going on. The only thing different was that it was three of us doing everything instead of two of us.  I am trying to recall exactly what it was, but it wasn't much.  We had to go to the store to get more detergent and stuff.  

Thursday we had to go to Florianopolis in the morning because Elder A****** had a leadership training meeting.  Elder C***** and I went back home to have lunch and then we went back to Florianopolis to pick up Elder A******.  As we were waiting, I saw my old companion Elder F******.  He is leaving tomorrow and we caught up and talked about crazy mission stories and how we will hang out most likely after the mission.  I also saw Elder B*******.  We talked as well and caught up.  It was good to see them again.  Then we went home.

Friday we went back to Florianopolis in the morning to drop off Elder A***** so he could catch his bus.  He had to go to the other side of the state.  We then went home and started to live a normal missionary life of just two in a companionship rather than three.  Later, we went to k**** to see the wedding of some of our investigators.  We then had a Burger King and sea food wedding dinner.  I did not eat any of the sea food and I am glad I didn't because my companion ended up having diarrhea and threw up.  And people ask why I don't eat sea food...

So, it has been a very hectic week and not exactly productive but that is sometimes part of missionary's life.  Sometimes there are just fast paced weeks of nothing.  I am not complaining or anything.  I thought it was fun to see all my friends again.  Good times.

This week we will have a conference with President ******** (or something like that) who is in the presidency of the area of Brazil.  I think the second quorum of the seventy.  He will come over and talk to us.  Not exactly sure about what but it will be exactly what our mission needs to hear.  I am sure it will help a lot.  I am excited to hear what he has to say.

The work is progressing here in ******** and will continue to progress.  We plan on marking some baptismal dates with investigators for this month.  I feel that we have found three investigators who really want to learn more about the gospel.  We will work hard with them.

Thank you all for your letters and support.  I love you all very much.  Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Kevin Brady

March 4, 2013

Hi Family and Friends,

Well, isn't that all fine and dandy that you all celebrated my birthday in Hawaii?  I remember the days when I was in middle school and high school and you guys would just go to Hawaii on my birthday without me.  Oh and maybe send me a picture of the beach.  Good times.  My life in a nutshell. haha just kidding.

We had a baptism on Saturday and it was great.  I felt the spirit very strongly.  The girl is nine years old and she kind of had fear of the water when my companion was baptizing her.  The witnesses had him do the baptism three times because her feet popped out of the water when she was immersed. Poor girl.  Anyway, she and her mom came to sacrament meeting and we did the confirmation.

This week is going to be chaotic because my companion is leaving, but before he leaves he has five different meetings that he has to go to.  My new companion will be Elder C*****. 

I will be catching a plane home May 21st in the morning.  I do not know when I will arrive in Oregon but they are buying the tickets right now and everything.  I was just asked which airport I wanted to arrive at and I told them the New York airport.  I am excited.  I will run across the country to you guys after that.  I'm just kidding I told them the Portland airport.  I hope he didn't choose Portland, Maine.

So that is all for this week.  I will be staying in the same area and teaching the same investigators.  I am looking forward to some great stuff. 

I love you guys.  Have a good week.

Love

Elder Kevin Brady

February 25, 2013 "My Birthday"

Hi Family and Friends,

So finally we got electricity in the apartment again after more than a month without it.  Now I can wash my clothes and take a warm shower.  And drink cold water instead of lukewarm water.  Congrats to Erica in the play.  Sounds like they did a great job.

Today is my birthday, and thankfully it's on a P-day [preparation day] so i can relax on my birthday.  Not sure though exactly what I will do.  Not much to do anyway since we aren't authorized to do pretty much anything other than missionary work. But that is OK, I'll figure something out.

This Sunday we had three investigators at church and we marked a baptism for this Saturday with one of them.  It was announced at church and the investigator, her name is E******, is really excited.  The other investigators were a couple that we started to teach on Thursday and they were referred to us from a member of the ward. They really enjoyed the meetings.  Hopes are high for them.

Another family we were teaching is now rejecting us and running away every time we walk by their house.  I'm not really sure what we did or what they heard but they just don't want to hear from us.  A family scheduled a family home evening with them for today with us, but I am not sure that they actually explained that us missionaries are going to be there.  I hope that the family won't get angry about that fact.

So, I am still with my companion from Argentina but president said that it was very likely for me next week to be transfered to my last area.  So I will probably have one more companion after this and I am not sure if he will be American or Brazilian or from another country.

That was all for this week.  I love you guys and I hope you have a good week.  I'll see you all soon.

Love,

Elder Kevin Brady

February 18, 2013

Hi Family and Friends,

I feel a little better.  I went to Florianópolis on Friday to take care of the electricity problem because president was busy and kept forgetting.  So I got it taken care of and sometime this week we will have electricity again.  I am happy.  I can now save the food I buy in a refrigerator and save money.  And no more cold showers.

So this week was good and bad at the same time.  We had some success with M***** and others, but S****** and her family are rejecting us.  Well, just she is.  Her husband likes us but S***** keeps telling her kids to tell us that she is not home.  Everyone has their agency I guess.

This Saturday we will do an activity with the Ward where we will all hand out pass-along cards with our phone number on it to try and find more people who want to hear our message.  I do hope it turns out as a success.

The mission is rough sometimes, but it is getting better.  We are planning on encouraging one of our investigators to commit baptism and marking a date.  I hope it happens.

We had no investigators at sacrament meeting but we did have a lot of less-actives who came and that was exciting to see them all at church.

We are going to work hard to find more people this week.  I hope it turns out great.  I love you all and thank you for your encouragement.

Love,

Elder Brady

February 11, 2013

Hey Family and Friends,

Yes mom, I do agree.  Generally when we are converted . . . it does lead to conversion. :D  So this week I eventually got over my illness at least.  We still have no electricity, and everyone is vacationing because of Carnival so there is not much missionary work that is able to be done.  I love how there is no electricity in the house and how the nights here are so hot and how the mosquitoes love to bite us and keep us up all night and how the repellent ran out and how the showers are freezing cold and how we got caught in a rain storm and all of my scriptures got wet.  Love it.  See how positive I am?. :)

We had a zone meeting this week.  Probably the highlight because I was able to see some old friends from on the mission and my companion from the CTM.  Good stuff.  And that's about it with the highlights and the good stuff that has happened.

Of course it doesn't really do any good to complain because the mission is no different than real life.     I decided to be more laid back and not get stressed out about things so now I feel better.  It helps a lot.

I do love the mission and at the same time I struggle with it.  I have a “love – not so much love” relationship with the mission.  I want to do good and at the same time I sometimes lack motivation.  I know the purpose of a mission, yet I don't feel that fire (especially when we don't have electricity!).  Or it does ignite a fire within me and then everything bad that can happen happens.  This mission is the most difficult thing that I have ever chosen to do in my life.  Just by finishing the mission I have already put in more effort in it than any musicals, plays, or sports I ever participated in.

Anyway.  We are working with the same guy who is recent member every now and then.  He has only gone to church once since he got baptized but he has stopped drinking for almost a month now.  That is great.  Now to help him come to church is our next goal.

So that is what has been going on this week.  I hope your week goes well.  I love you guys.  

Love,

Elder Kevin Brady

February 4, 2012

Hello family and friends,

Well, this week was kind of the pits.  We have no light or electricity in our house so we cannot cook anything to eat. We also have freezing cold showers because of it.  And to top if off, yesterday I had a cold that turned into a fever while sleeping and now I feel pretty horrible.  I also feel some wheezing when I breath in deep.  I think it's a sinus infection.  I really can't stand it.  I have no idea when we will have electricity again. I have never been so miserable.

So anyway, we had a baptism on Saturday (that night is when the cold started) and that was great.  M******* was very excited to be baptized and she is coming to church more often as well.  We had hot dogs afterwards which I enjoyed.

I really can't remember much of anything that has happened this week my mind is all fuzzy and my head hurts.

We have another girl who we are teaching.  Her mom is a member though less - active and we are working with them both to come back to church.  We plan on marking a baptism with them sometime soon.

Well that is all I can think about writing right now besides complaining about how miserable I feel, but I am sure that you guys don't want to hear that.  So I will end with the fact that God wants me to go through all these difficulties for a reason that I cannot see at the time being and that it will strengthen me somehow.  I just have to push forward with faith and hope that all will turn out well in the end.

I love you guys.  Have a good week.

Love,

Elder Kevin Brady

January 28, 2013

Hi Family and Friends,

Well this week was OK.  We were all waiting for Saturday to satisfy our curiosity to find out if we were being transfered to a new area or not.  But we weren't.  We are still in the same area.  This is weird for me.  I generally don't like to stay in the same area forever.

Anyway, the baptism that was supposed to happen this last Saturday got postponed to this upcoming Saturday.  We are hoping that it will work out OK.  We feel confident that it will though.  She was the only one that came to church out of all of our investigators.  She does enjoy coming to church.

All of our other appointments fell through.  We had only two lessons with members present and no lessons with just investigators.  So, not so much fun.  Hopefully this week is better.

I think my face is sensitive to shaving.  I am constantly getting pimples and zits where I shave and my face gets irritated whenever I shave. It's really starting to get on my nerves.  But what do you do?

So, not much spiritual experiences for me this week since pretty much nothing happened.  Weeks like this are difficult.  Well, anyway, it did give my companion and I an opportunity to talk about our interests. So we talked about the different martial arts and what we want to do and everything.  He wants to learn boxing, or kick boxing.  I want to learn all the most popular martial arts and boxing to learn stamina.  Then I can defend myself and others.  It might be a good way for me to lose stress and have a better lifestyle when I get back home.

But on the mission I have got to learn stress tips with the limited-- extremely limited resources that I have.  Yeah so that was my week.  I learned a bit about patience too.  I read some scripture in proverbs that talked about if we can't be patient then we are imbeciles.  Something like that.  I laughed, because I'm not patient and the scripture is calling me basically an imbecile.  Lol.

Well that was my week. I love you guys.  The church is true and so is the gospel.

Love,

Elder Kevin Brady

Letter from Kevin

(to Katrina)

Monday January 28, 2013

Hey Katrina,

It was so good to hear from you.  Henry seems to get funnier everyday. All the kids are growing up so fast! I love you guys and I wish the best for you.  The mission is going good for me right now.  Have a great week this week.

I love you!

Elder Kevin Brady